


in every prison cell, a comfort

by Kate_Wisdom



Category: Colditz (1972)
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Slash If You Squint, Prisoner of War, Stiff Upper Lip, World War II, references to canonical minor character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:47:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26660899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kate_Wisdom/pseuds/Kate_Wisdom
Summary: It's cold in Colditz, even in the summer. The fellows have to resort to all kinds of things to keep warm.
Relationships: John Preston & Pat Grant, John Preston/Caroline Preston, Simon Carter & Tim Downing
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	in every prison cell, a comfort

** Part One: Almost Summer **

Colditz was suitably named, for the castle harboured its own particular brand of cold. Pat Grant had been there for long enough to know how frosty the place was all year around. When he had arrived in 1940, after Laufen, after Dunkirk, the frigid winter had seen men huddled under blankets and three layers of clothing to keep warm. Now summer was almost upon them, but you would hardly have known it from how everyone was still bundled in their sweaters, the castle’s unforgiving Gothic stone sopping up whatever warmth could be derived from the thin sunshine outside.

Colditz was a prison, an impenetrable fortress, designed to keep its inhabitants restrained. Within its walls, men similarly grew cold to one another, untrusting of anyone apart from themselves. In this cold, disconsolate place, men guarded themselves against the human needs for companionship and comfort.

They were all desperately alone, every man here in the castle. 

When Colonel Preston came to Colditz, he’d brought military discipline to the camp, and instilled in the men a sense of order and communal spirit. Where previously all escape attempts had been haphazard, under Preston’s leadership the men had finally learned to devise campaigns worthy of officers of the King’s commission. Preston had proven himself a robust defender of the men’s interests; more, he’d managed to unite them, raising their morale, and giving them a shared purpose. 

But the S.B.O. was possibly the loneliest man in the camp. After all, he couldn’t very well share the solitary burdens of his office, and he was the one man who could never attempt a run.

The day it started, Pat had gone to see the S.B.O. on account of an escape proposal drawn up by Carrington and Player. They needed Preston’s permission to use all the German money they had on this run.

Preston had been uncommonly distant for the last week or so. When Pat had popped his head around on Tuesday to give him a head’s up about Player’s initial proposal, the colonel had been unusually short with him. He’d said nothing discourteous or overly gruff, of course, he wasn’t that sort of man, but he’d brusquely told him to get on with it. Pat definitely got the impression that his mind was elsewhere.

When Pat entered the S.B.O.’s rooms this time, Preston was standing at the window, his hands loosely clasped behind his back, staring out into the yard. The afternoon sun cast light and shadow over his neatly-pressed hair, his chiselled face, his ramrod-straight back.

“Could I have a word with you, sir? Something needs your approval.”

Preston seemed not to have heard. He moved not a single muscle from his position. He’d always had that air of dignified stillness, a picture of calm strength before the storm, but today, it was as if he had been turned into a carved statue of himself. 

“Sir?”

The colonel turned his head a fraction, finally acknowledging Pat’s presence. His voice was quiet and reflective, so different from his usual tones of command.

“I’ve just been told that my wife is dead.” 

What could you say, when your commanding officer told you a thing like that? Taken by surprise, Pat couldn’t manage anything other than, “I’m sorry, sir.” 

“I knew she’d been involved in an accident,” Preston said. He paused, and something wry crossed his face. “By some irony, I’ve also just been told I’ve been awarded the D.S.O.” Even more quietly: “She would have been very proud of that.”

The Distinguished Service Order for Gallantry was a signature award, but to obtain that honour on the heels of news like this? The old man looked as if his whole world had come to an end.

Pat offered, after a beat, “You’ve never mentioned your wife before, sir.”

Preston turned away, and addressed his remarks to the exercise yard, to the open window, to the sunlight streaming in. “We’re in this bloody place, everyone has some private grief or worry at home. If we all talked about it, life would become intolerable.”

And that was it, wasn’t it? Why everyone was so miserable, so alone, when they all had their separate burdens and heartaches bottled up inside. Even Colonel Preston. _Especially_ the colonel. 

Pat was seized with the absurd impulse to cross the room to stand by his commanding officer’s side, and put a comforting hand on Preston’s broad shoulder.

Unthinkable, of course. Englishmen simply didn’t do that sort of thing, didn’t touch one another out of sympathy or consolation. And an English colonel and a captain in his command? Absolutely not.

“Is there anything I can do, sir?” he asked, and wanted to kick himself over how cowardly it sounded. 

Preston stood there for a moment longer, facing the window. His clasped hands clenched and then unclenched with the drumbeat of his sorrow. Then he turned around, with some effort, and faced Pat squarely. 

“You wanted to see me?” When Pat tried to demur, Preston overrode him: “Now or later, it doesn’t make a difference.”

It didn’t make a difference. The colonel had all the time in the world, now that his wife wasn’t living in it any longer.

Pat rattled off the particulars of the plan, all the while watching as the colonel set aside his grief to focus on its finer details. Eventually, Preston said, “Well, it does sound like a good way of investing our money. Tell the men they may proceed with matters,” and he nodded his dismissal.

Pat took a step back. Then he hesitated, and seized his courage with both hands.

The colonel had appointed Pat as the camp’s Escape Officer, which had made Pat, effectively, Preston’s second-in-command. If there was anyone whose job was to look after the S.B.O. - - apart from the colonel’s batman, Corporal Baker - - it was him. 

“I don’t want to intrude, sir, but I could stay, if you like.” As Preston smiled tightly, clearly readying himself to refuse, he continued, “Begging your pardon, you do look like you could use some company.”

This earned him a real smile from the colonel. “I do, do I? Well, I suppose I must, if my E.O.’s seen fit to raise it with me.” 

As Pat tried to demur again, Preston took a step toward his desk, gesturing to the opposite chair. “Have a seat, Pat. I’d offer you something to drink, but I’m not sure where Baker’s got to.”

“That’s not necessary, sir.” Pat pulled up a chair to the table, where the colonel had clearly paused in the act of letter writing. Sheaves of writing paper lay on the table’s surface, covered with Preston’s distinctive hand, as well as a photograph of two small boys.

“Are those your children, Colonel?”

“Yes.” A curious tenderness crossed Preston’s face, a look which Pat had never seen the colonel wear before. “I’ve been writing to them, but I don’t know if they can read. Someone will have to read the letters to them. They’re very young, you see, only 6 and 4.”

“Nice children. Who’s looking after them?” 

Preston heaved a sigh. “We sent them to live with my sister in Cheltenham when the bombings started. There wasn’t a question of Caroline going with them, of course.”

“Your wife stayed in London, sir?”

“She did. Ambulance drivers are in short supply these days, as we all know. It’s dangerous work, driving at night in the middle of an air raid, but she was trained for it. It was important to her that she did her part in the war.” He looked down. “It was important to both of us.”

Pat’s throat ached. He’d never been married, he didn’t know the comforts of that special union between man and wife, and the torment they went through when they were apart. He knew how hard it had been for poor Simon Carter, so briefly married and now going through such anguish over being parted from his Cathy. 

“Colonel, I’m very sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you,” Preston said. He had to clear his throat. “We had seven years together. Do you know, it doesn’t seem long at all.”

Unspoken, of course, that it hadn’t nearly been enough time. Which must be excruciating, given how there was nothing but time here in Colditz, and no one now whom Preston could even dream of sharing it with.

“Did … did she have family, sir?”

“No. No, and it’s added to the present concern.” The colonel rubbed his hand against his forehead in a show of rare frustration. “Caroline was an orphan. And my brother-in-law in Cheltenham has just been posted overseas, so it seems the boys are on their way to my mother’s in Ipswich.”

Pat thought about his own mother, safe in County Kildare. She was still in good health, though she had slowed down after his father’s passing; he’d gotten a letter from her just the other day.

“I suppose your mum must be looking forward to that.”

Preston sighed heavily. “That’s the trouble. My mother is getting on, you see, I’m not sure she can manage, or if so for how long. The house is too large for her, she tells me she can barely cope with it as it is.”

So it wasn’t just the grief over his wife, then, it was also the worry about their young sons. Pat had known the colonel for a while now, and he could see, under the stoic veneer, the surviving parent’s heavy burden of guilt and anxiety and responsibility.

He said, uselessly, “It must be a tremendous worry.” 

Preston smiled a taut half-smile. “Yes, it is. Nothing to be done about it, of course, I know that.”

Perhaps it was the sight of that tightly-controlled smile, the suppressed pain in the colonel’s eyes, but a light suddenly came on in Pat’s head, the same razor-fast instinct that seized him when planning a run he knew stood a decent chance at success. 

“But there is, you know.”

“I beg your pardon?” Preston started to say, his frown deepening, as the rest of the words burst out of Pat.

“Carrington’s ploy with the guard, sir, and the tunnel from the canteen. When the plan’s ready, you could go with the escape team! I mean, you could lead the escape mission yourself.”

Preston waited until Pat had finished, and then said, gently, “I can’t, Pat, it’s out of the question.”

“But why, sir?”

Preston lifted his chin. “I’m the Senior British Officer. My duty is here, to look after your interests. To take care of all of you, at least those who don’t manage to escape.” He smiled, sadly. “It’s my duty _not_ to escape.”

“You have better personal reasons for escaping than any man here,” Pat persisted. He was conscious that he was trembling, a little, and he never trembled, not even when he was taking his chances at Laufen, or coming off the beach into the firefight at Dunkirk.

Preston fixed Pat with a shrewd look, and then he reached out and rapped his knuckles, once, very lightly, against Pat’s own. “Tell me, Captain, are _you_ planning on going on this escape?”

“Me --?” Pat found himself on the back foot with the question. Maybe it was the colonel’s searching gaze, or the unexpected tap that nevertheless still sang across his knuckles. “No, Colonel, it’s impossible. I’m the Escape Officer. It’s in the job description, the one you wrote for me. I need to stay here to see things through.”

Preston nodded once, affirmatively. “Then you see why I can’t either.”

“But, sir, think about it,” Pat protested. “You could be back in England in no time, and see how the boys are yourself. Isn’t it more important that you be with them, than in here with us?”

Preston shook his head. “I must put the welfare of our men ahead of my personal feelings,” he said. 

His voice was as rock steady as it had always been, but it tore Pat up nonetheless. 

“Who puts your feelings first, then, sir?”

He blurted it out, and instantly regretted it. Englishmen didn’t talk about their feelings, they didn’t like to even admit they had any, and the colonel surely the least of all.

Preston looked taken aback by Pat’s vehemence, though to his credit, he didn’t demur. Instead, reflectively, he mused, “No one. I wouldn’t allow it. The same way as you wouldn’t allow anyone to put your feelings first, Captain, least of all you yourself.”

Pat felt somewhat ashamed of his outburst, and for thinking Preston might actually agree with his impulsive offer. Fortunately, the old man didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he was looking at Pat rather more warmly than he had ever looked upon any of his officers before. His eyes almost seemed to twinkle, though of course it could just be the afternoon light.

Belatedly, Pat brought his focus back to the problem at hand. 

“Does your mother have any kindly women friends?” he ventured. “Or, do you know, some of the men here might have relatives who could pitch in. For instance, young Simon tells me his wife hasn’t much to do, and a domineering father she might be keen to get away from occasionally. They live up near Bury St Edmunds, in Suffolk, it’s not a long drive from there to Ipswich. With your leave, sir, I could ask him for you.”

He watched as a small hope dawned across Preston’s otherwise stoic face.

“I see. You know I couldn’t ask Lieutenant Carter myself, of course, or any of the other men.”

“No, but I could,” Pat said stoutly. “The lads would do anything for you, Colonel, and no mistake.”

That included him, of course. In that moment, Pat realised what he would be prepared to do for his S.B.O.

For the first time this afternoon, Preston’s face relaxed into a broad smile of relief. It warmed Pat as much as the fleeting touch of the Colonel’s hand. “Thank you, Pat. You’re a good man, and a good friend.”

Pat didn’t say what he wanted to say, of course, which was: _As are you, sir_. English officers didn’t say things like that - - to their commanding officer, in any case. 

This was a stop-gap measure, of course, and banding together to see what they could do for old Mrs Preston was just the start of it. They were still all desperately lonely, here in Colditz, and none more than the S.B.O. But Pat thought that, just maybe, on this terrible day, he had helped make Preston feel a little less alone after all.

* * *

** Part 2: Winter, still **

Tim Downing wasn’t the sort of chap to wax poetic about how cold and miserable it was in Colditz, with just the isolation, and the daily routine, and the coldness and isolation of that daily routine, for company. 

Naturally, the escapes were a welcome break from the usual, mind-numbing sameness. The mental challenge of planning out a route and walking through the dress rehearsal, the jolt of adrenaline that came from hearing Jerry come down the corridor and scrambling to hide the evidence, the thrill of taking your life into your own hands. Maybe the chaps were keen on the escapes precisely for that reason, as a diversion from monotony rather than for the sake of the run itself.

Tim used to know how that felt. Being a Guards officer was all about the pleasure of giving battle; when he first arrived in Colditz, he’d been all too eager to risk life and limb in order to get away. But the years of being front and centre of many escapes had made him wiser, had made him realise how satisfying it was to help other chaps with their planning, and how good at it he’d become, so much so that when news of Pat Grant’s home run had finally come to Colditz last month, he’d volunteered to take Pat’s place as the camp’s Escape Officer.

He’d been pretty sore that the colonel had turned him down in favour of Simon Carter. 

There was no way Simon was a better candidate: Simon with his broken ankle, Simon with that enormous chip on his bolshy little shoulder, Simon who was even more reckless and more desperate to return to England to be with his new wife. Tim had no one waiting for him at home; he was the obviously superior choice. 

And yet the old man had picked Simon over Tim, had seen some steel in him, some leadership quality or obsessive attention to detail that Tim himself must have lacked.

Tim told himself he didn’t hold grudges, but it was hard not to feel a bit hard done by, especially given that both the colonel and Simon himself knew how much he’d wanted the position. Still, he supposed Preston had his reasons, and his days of second-guessing the old man’s decisions were long over. 

Since then, they’d fallen into another routine. With Pat and Phil gone with the wild geese, poor old Peter injured, and Dick still in solitary, he and Simon formed an informal Escape Executive Committee, with George as a distant third wheel. Tim had never considered himself particularly close to Simon, but he now found himself in intimate proximity with the man, poring over maps and discussing escape plans together and giving the go-aheads for dress rehearsals, even though Simon was hampered by his busted ankle and was limited in what he physically could and couldn’t do. 

Strangely enough, Tim couldn’t say this new, Simon-centric routine was unpleasant. It certainly wasn’t boring, you had to give the fellow that.

As if Simon’s day-to-day life, with his usual prickly manner and his determination to rub Jerry up the wrong way, wasn’t interesting enough, he’d of late attracted the attentions of Colditz’s new second in command, Major Hans Mohn: decorated war hero, and all-around pain-in-the-arse. Simon might have deserved his reputation as a bit of a troublemaker, but that bastard Mohn kept bloody _provoking_ him, reading Simon’s letters from Cathy and trampling on his precious time with his wife, and needling him over his physical helplessness.

Only the other week, Mohn had interrupted them while they had been tossing the cricket ball around the yard. He’d thrown the ball deliberately wide, Simon had lunged for it like the prideful idiot he was, and had fallen badly on his gammy leg. They’d had to carry Simon back up to the quarters, sobbing with pain.

Since then, Mohn had been seeking Simon out, to taunt him about Cathy and how he was all alone with his pain and now not-so-secret longing. 

Tim caught them at it that afternoon in the courtyard. Mohn was smirking, saying something which Tim was too far away to hear, and Simon’s face had turned white with anger. 

Some instinct made Tim see red, and he hurried over to them.

“I say, Major, I don’t know how you Jerrys do it in Germany, but in England it’s really not sporting to kick a man while he’s down.”

“To be sporting one would have to view this as a sport, no?” Mohn’s scar made his smile look like a snake’s. “Flight Lieutenant Carter, it would seem your champion has come to your rescue. What a shame. Let us resume this conversation another time.”

As the Major clicked his heels together mockingly and took his leave, Tim turned to Simon and discovered he’d turned even whiter.

“Are you all right?”

“I bloody well am not. What gives that bastard the right to invade people’s privacy? I’m going to see out every single escape and laugh in his face, see if I don’t.” Simon’s face was a mask of rage.

“Steady on a moment.” Tim put a hand on Simon’s shoulder, genuinely afraid his new E.O.’s bad leg might give out under him. He could feel Simon trembling with badly-suppressed fury.

Simon shook his hand off impatiently. “Don’t you tell me to steady on! I don’t need you to bloody fight my battles for me, or for anyone to. I’m going to beat him on my own terms, don’t you see?”

Tim bit back the retort that was on the tip of his own tongue. He could see the pain underneath Simon’s mask, the determination to get the better of this damned Nazi who had made himself into Simon’s personal enemy.

“Yes, I know you’ll do it,” he told Simon. “You’ll beat him, and I’m going to bloody well help you do it, whether you like it or not.”

Simon stopped in his tracks to look searchingly into Tim’s face. What he saw there made him break, reluctantly, into a smile at last.

It was a good smile, a smile that transformed the man’s usually sullen, withdrawn face. Tim found himself wanting to stay at Simon’s side so that he might see it again. 

That must have been the only reason for the sudden, hot-headed compulsion he felt to brave the regulations for a little moonlight stroll. Tim wasn’t sure why, precisely, but he was after all a man of instinct and derring-do. 

Simon was the same way, fierce and impulsive. When Tim whispered to him in the mess, “Fancy a little night air, later?”, he’d grinned and said, “What d’you have in mind?”

Tim felt he was at his best when planning on the fly. In fact, he’d asked George Brent to decant for him a flask of ersatz raisin wine, and had taken the precaution of stashing it, together with some blankets, in the attic above the officers’ quarters, on the hope that Simon would say yes.

By unspoken agreement, both of them kept their outdoor clothes on under their pyjamas. After lights out, when most of the fellows had fallen asleep, they slid from their beds, put their winter coats on, and slipped from the room. 

Tim knew the way intimately, of course, could have walked it with his eyes closed; it was child’s play to do that with the moon lighting their way. Simon knew it too, but he wasn’t his usual sure-footed self with his bum ankle. Tim took his arm, and they both moved easily together like a man and his shadow: down the corridor, up the stairs to the top floor, and into the damp, badly ventilated attic room strewn with discarded boxes and old papers in a foreign language. 

Moonlight streamed into the room though the grimy window. Tim let go of Simon’s arm, headed to the window and thrust it open. 

This was the first part of the route Simon had used on his run last year with Phil and the two Poles, traversing the roof gutters until they reached the outer wall of the castle. But with his ankle in the state it was in, Simon wouldn’t now be able to make it across the narrow plank to the ramparts beyond, and in any case that wasn’t Tim’s intent. He meant what he’d suggested: a little excursion in the moonlight, with the man who had been his rival for the coveted post of E.O., and who had become his closest friend in the camp.

He turned back to Simon. “Up for some fresh air, old chap? Nothing that’d need authorisation from the Escape Committee, of course.”

“Sounds gripping.” Simon stepped forward, and let Tim help him up onto the wooden chair he’d pushed under the window, before using his wiry upper body strength to lever himself onto the roof beyond. Tim gathered the flask and the blankets, and followed suit.

The moon was bright over the roofs of Colditz; shining across the battlements and ramparts of the old castle, the silent camp below, and beyond, the dark shapes of the distant, sleeping town. Even more distant were the stars in the night sky that stood watch over prisoner and guard alike.

“Cold,” muttered Simon, and it was - - winter, still, with frost marking the ground below, not a hint of spring in the frigid air. 

“Here,” Tim said, and made rather a demonstration of tucking the blankets around his friend’s square, compact form. Then he eased himself down beside Simon, wrapping one corner of the blanket around his own shoulders, and opened the flask of ersatz wine. “This’ll take the edge off.”

“I see you’ve come prepared, like a good escape planner.” Simon took a swig, and they passed the flask between them companionably, letting the alcohol and the blankets and their shared body heat warm them.

“Not sure what you had in mind in terms of night air, Downing,” Simon commented, presently, “but this isn’t half bad.” 

“As long as the E.O.’s having a good time,” Tim said, facetiously. He meant it, as it happened. Sneaking out after curfew to sit on a roof in the freezing cold wouldn’t have been everyone’s idea of a good time, but it seemed to have cheered Simon right up. 

“I am. Funny thing, isn’t it? We spent so much time up here, going over that run with the Poles, but we never really noticed how bright the stars are, or how you can see right into the valley from here.”

Simon gestured toward the vista with his chin. In the moonlight, his eyes seemed somehow brighter than they were in the daytime. 

Tim felt a slow warmth blossom from somewhere under his sternum. He told himself he’d chalk it up to the ersatz wine.

“We should head in before we’re missed,” he said, after a while.

Simon shifted under the blankets. Doubtless entirely innocently, without any ill intent whatsoever, he leaned his weight against Tim’s side, and Tim could feel the heat of him curl through the various layers of clothing and thick wool of their coats.

“Let’s give it another five minutes,” Simon murmured. His cheeks were pink with what Tim assumed was the cold.

Tim hadn’t the heart to deny him. Anyway, if the E.O. thought they could get away with five more minutes, who was he to gainsay that? It might be cold and miserable here in Colditz, but if he could do something to break the isolation, the dull routine, could make things more bearable for someone who was going through a tough time, he figured it would be the risk.

He put his arm around Simon’s shoulders, and they breathed the night in together.

**Author's Note:**

> Most grateful to Kainosite for the beta.
> 
> Part 1 takes place during S1E9.  
> Per S1E2, Carter’s squadron was the 149th, [ located at RAF Mildenhall, in Suffolk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._149_Squadron_RAF); this has informed my choice to locate Cathy’s stately home in Bury St Edmunds, 30 mins drive away (though as we know from S2E1, she later moved to London). 
> 
> Part 2 includes a reference to the roof crossing in S1E8, featuring [the Colditz chapel roof which was apparently obscured from German view.](https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__en.wikipedia.org_wiki_Colditz-5FCock&d=DwMFaQ&c=CnhHgRxTZIOMOOZ4uD6hoyra61vGnhVtQ8G_wvUoVOc&r=xkKl55qWPbOAtz3QvYte0S7-kqyGJnPyhiNy3yomvKY&m=3t_pSlDbmJQPUCwmkWRwjxTz452V1mYRdGVQGwLTPgg&s=o250KSLvtdpZNoqyqLl3i2VwAWjRprWYyCKG5SaMpKA&e=)


End file.
